How are you spending the summer solstice?

[serious crayons]

I thought in New Orleans it started getting hot in January and cooled down in December. ...

Haha! No, the winters are very nice, but as short as Minneapolis summers.

Speaking of which, the longtime New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani, reviewing Lab Girl, which is partly set in Minnesota, once wrote "Ms. Jahren?s own childhood in a small Minnesota town, where there was snow on the ground nine months of the year and where most residents worked for a huge slaughterhouse, was filled with silences."

Oh, c'mon! Two minutes googling (or a better editor) could have fixed that. Minneapolis often has snow by Thanksgiving and sometimes sees a snowstorm in April. So at most it's about six months of snow on the ground. (Which, don't get me wrong, is about five and a half months too long.) And Austin, home of Hormel Meats, is farther south, so even less there.

Also, "filled with silences"? That's at best a poetic exaggeration. Though it may echo something in Lab Girl, which I read some years ago.

[Sason]

[Sason]

Maybe that's why it's boring. Nothing exciting about normalcy. 

Excuse you?

Nothing boring here, I assure you!! 

[Sason]

As I just wrote elsewhere, tomorrow is Midsummer Day (or Sainte-Jean-Baptiste Day).

I can never remember whether we're supposed to light a bonfire tonight (the eve of the day) or tomorrow night. 

We dance around a midsummer pole today

[Sason]

You call us boring, Jeff?

This is how much fun we have on midsummer!

 

[serious crayons]

But also ... 

[Jeff Wrangler]

We dance around a midsummer pole today

You realize, of course, that a pole like that, like a May pole also, is an ancient phallic symbol?

[CellarDweller]

As I just wrote elsewhere, tomorrow is Midsummer Day (or Sainte-Jean-Baptiste Day).

I can never remember whether we're supposed to light a bonfire tonight (the eve of the day) or tomorrow night. 

Found this on Google.


Bonfires are lit on Midsummer's Eve to ward off witches and evil spirits and warm up late-night revelers. Build your own (even a small campfire will do) as a way to keep bad luck at bay.

[serious crayons]

You realize, of course, that a pole like that, like a May pole also, is an ancient phallic symbol?

I'd never thought about it, but makes sense. Sexual activities seem common in ancient pagan traditional celebrations, or at least that's how legend has it.

In New Orleans for Mardi Gras, they crown "Rex," or King of Carnival, usually a local middle-aged aristocratic businessman, and pick a debutante as Queen. I used to joke that just before midnight on Mardi Gras the royal couple had to have sex on Bourbon Street to ensure a good tourist season.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'd never thought about it, but makes sense. Sexual activities seem common in ancient pagan traditional celebrations, or at least that's how legend has it.

In New Orleans for Mardi Gras, they crown "Rex," or King of Carnival, usually a local middle-aged aristocratic businessman, and pick a debutante as Queen. I used to joke that just before midnight on Mardi Gras the royal couple had to have sex on Bourbon Street to ensure a good tourist season.

At Beltane people had sex in the fields to ensure good crops, so why not have sex to ensure a good tourist season? 

I believe I've told this story. A gay Wiccan once explained to me about having sex to ensure good crops. I thought a moment, and then I said to him, "So two gay men having sex are going to ensure good crops." (I made a statement; I didn't ask a question.)

He thought a moment, and then he said to me, "You know, you just might have something there."

 

(As if gay men need an excuse to have sex. ... I suppose it's the same for straight people, too.  )